The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey

E. Fuller Torrey

Publication Year: 2013

During his brief yet remarkable career, abolitionist Charles Torrey -- called the "father of the Underground Railroad" by his peers -- assisted almost four hundred slaves in gaining their freedom. A Yale graduate and an ordained minister, Torrey set up a well-organized route for escaped slaves traveling from Washington and Baltimore to Philadelphia and Albany. Arrested in Baltimore in 1844 for his activities, Torrey spent two years in prison before he succumbed to tuberculosis. By then, other abolitionists widely recognized and celebrated Torrey's exploits: running wagonloads of slaves northward in the night, dodging slave catchers and sheriffs, and involving members of Congress in his schemes. Nonetheless, the historiography of abolitionism has largely overlooked Torrey's fascinating and compelling story.

The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey presents the first comprehensive biography of one of America's most dedicated abolitionists. According to author E. Fuller Torrey, a distant relative, Charles Torrey pushed the abolitionist movement to become more political and active. He helped advance the faction that challenged the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, provoking an irreversible schism in the movement and making Torrey and Garrison bitter enemies. Torrey played an important role in the formation of the Liberty Party and in the emergence of political abolitionism. Not satisfied with the slow pace of change, he also pioneered aggressive abolitionism by personally freeing slaves, likely liberating more than any other person. In doing so, he inspired many others, including John Brown, who cited Torrey as one of his role models.

E. Fuller Torrey's study not only fills a substantial gap in the history of abolitionism but restores Charles Torrey to his rightful place as one of the most dedicated and significant abolitionists in American history.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Quote

Contents

Preface

“Martyr Charles Turner Torrey, the Abolitionist” was one of twelve
names on the yellowing piece of paper to which my mother vainly
tried to direct my attention. The paper was titled “Prominent Torreys,”
but despite sharing a few genes, distant relatives held little interest...

Acknowledgments

1. An Abolitionist Schism

Wednesday, January 23, 1839: It was, wrote Maria Chapman, “the
largest anti-slavery gathering ever witnessed in Massachusetts, and
a noble sight it was to look upon. . . . Bigotry and sectarism [sic] were
pitted against religious liberty and Christian love. . . . It was a turning
point in the cause. A strong and mighty wind had come to winnow...

2. Discovering God and Slaves

The road Charles Torrey traveled to reach his 1839 confrontation
with William Lloyd Garrison was not easy. He had been born on November
21, 1813, in Scituate, a coastal town south of Boston. Later in
life, Torrey recalled the “wide marshes, covered with short salt grass,
through which curves for many a mile old North river.” The river...

3. Political Abolitionism

The 1839 meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society would
be a watershed for American abolitionism. In the early years of the
century, the abolitionist movement’s dominant theme had been
gradualism—the belief that the emancipation of slaves could be...

4. The First Arrest

Charles Torrey arrived in Washington in early December 1841. His
ostensible job was to be a Washington reporter for the Boston Daily
Mail, the New York Evangelist, and several other small abolitionist
papers. Joshua Leavitt, the former editor of the Evangelist, may have
helped Torrey get the assignments. As an accredited reporter...

5. Aggressive Abolitionism

It is unclear when Charles Torrey first formulated his plans to assist
slaves to escape their bondage, but he had been considering it for
many months. His experience with John Torrance, who failed in his
attempt to free himself, showed Torrey that slaves often needed assistance
if they were to be successful. The mutinies of slaves aboard...

6. The Second Arrest

In October 1842, Charles Torrey moved from Washington to Albany,
New York, where his family joined him, the first time he had lived
with them in almost a year. He had accepted a position as editor of
the Tocsin of Liberty, an abolitionist weekly whose name was subsequently
changed to the...

7. Trial

The Baltimore city jail to which Charles Torrey was taken on June 24,
1844, was on Madison Street, immediately adjacent to the Maryland
Penitentiary. It was, coincidentally, the same jail in which William
Lloyd Garrison had been incarcerated for seven weeks in 1830 for...

8. Prison and Death

Charles Torrey fully expected the guilty verdict handed down by the
jury members on December 2, 1844. In the weeks preceding his trial,
he had thought about what more he might accomplish in whatever
time remained to him and had focused on two goals: first, to justify
his past actions, and second, to raise funds to pay his lawyer’s fees...

9. Aftermath

Charles Torrey’s influence did not end with his death on May 9, 1846.
Shortly after his body had been laid to rest in the Mount Auburn
Cemetery, his spirit appeared to have been resurrected in the person
of William L. Chaplin, one of Torrey’s greatest admirers...

10. Assessment

What can be said regarding the life and abolitionist career of Charles
Torrey? When he died at age thirty-two, he had been an abolitionist
for eleven years, from 1835 to 1846, with one of those years having
been spent recuperating from tuberculosis and two years spent...

Postscript

Charles Torrey’s wife, Mary, continued to live in West Medway, Massachusetts,
after her husband’s death. Her house, just west of her
parents’ house on Main Street, was built for her in 1850 by the Massachusetts
Abolitionist Society, and it still stands. She lived through...

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